South Carolina Senate rejects Trump’s call to redraw congressional map
for midterm elections
[May 27, 2026]
By JEFFREY COLLINS, MEG KINNARD, KIM CHANDLER and DAVID A.
LIEB
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — President Donald Trump’s push to reshape
congressional districts ahead of the November elections suffered a
double setback Tuesday, as South Carolina senators declined to do so and
a federal court blocked a Republican-backed map in Alabama.
As early in-person voting began Tuesday in South Carolina’s primaries,
the state Senate rejected a Republican plan to cancel those
congressional votes and instead schedule a new primary under revised
districts designed to help the GOP oust a longtime Democrat.
Some senators said it was simply too late to make a change.
“South Carolina citizens are going to the polls today. And neither my
conscience or common sense is going to let me stop an election that is
already underway,” Republican state Sen. Richard Cash said.
The political drama in South Carolina is part of a Republican strategy —
propelled by Trump — to redraw voting districts to the GOP’s advantage
in an attempt to hold on to a slim House majority in the midterm
elections. Republicans have moved quickly to try to leverage a recent
U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened minority protections under the
federal Voting Rights Act.
But in Alabama, a three-judge federal panel issued a preliminary
injunction blocking the state from using a Republican-drawn
congressional map that could help the GOP win an additional seat. The
court said the plan “intentionally discriminated based on race” by
including only one Black-majority district, and it ordered the continued
use of a court-imposed map that includes two districts with a
significant proportion of Black residents.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican, vowed a quick
appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and predicted an eventual victory.
Republicans, who remain ahead in a national mid-decade redistricting
battle, also notched some victories in lower courts on Tuesday.
A state judge in Florida declined to block new congressional districts
passed by the Republican-led Legislature from being used in the midterm
elections. Republicans stand to gain as many as four seats under the new
map. The judge said voting rights groups that sued hadn't shown they
were likely to succeed on their claim that the map was drawn with
political intent in violation of Florida's Constitution. The groups said
they were quickly appealing to a higher court, and vowed to keep
pursuing the case all the way to the state Supreme Court, if necessary.
A federal court also declined to issue a temporary restraining order in
a lawsuit contending that Tennessee's new U.S. House districts are
racially discriminatory. The new Republican-drawn map carves up a
majority-Black district in Memphis, giving Republicans an improved
chance to win the state's only Democratic-held seat. The case is one of
several brought against the map.
A redistricting battle that has spanned 10 months
Voting districts typically are redrawn after a census at the start of a
decade. But Trump has urged Republican-led states to redistrict ahead of
the November elections to try to rebuff political headwinds, which
typically result in lost congressional seats for the president’s party
in midterms.
Since Trump first urged Texas to redraw its voting districts last
summer, Republicans also have enacted new House districts in Missouri,
North Carolina, Ohio, Florida and Tennessee. Republicans think they
could gain as many as 14 seats from those efforts, and perhaps 15 if
they eventually win the ability to use a different map in Alabama.
Meanwhile, Democrats think they could win five additional seats from new
voter-approved districts in California, plus one more from a new
court-imposed map in Utah. Democrats suffered a setback earlier this
month in Virginia, where the state Supreme Court invalidated a
voter-approved redistricting plan that could have helped Democrats win
additional seats.
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Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., center, joined by House Minority Leader
Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., left, stands with members of the
Congressional Black Caucus during an event outside the Capitol in
Washington, Tuesday, May 19, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Redistricting discussions are ongoing in Louisiana following an
April high court ruling that struck down a majority-Black
congressional district as an illegal partisan gerrymander. The
Louisiana House could vote later this week on a new map that could
eliminate a seat held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields and
improve Republicans' chances of winning six of the state's seven
seats.
The Congressional Black Caucus on Tuesday called on major
corporations, including those that previously expressed support for
voting rights and racial justice, to oppose redistricting efforts by
Republican-led states that seek to eliminate majority-Black U.S.
House districts. The caucus last week called for Black athletes to
boycott public universities in states that are gerrymandering
congressional maps to eliminate districts held by Black lawmakers.
Clyburn decries White House role in redistricting
More than 55,000 ballots were cast Tuesday on South Carolina's first
day of early voting for the June 9 primary after Democrats called
for people against a proposed new map to turn out in force. In the
2022 midterms, about 125,000 early votes were cast in the entire two
weeks.
Among the first to cast an early ballot in the small city of
Orangeburg was U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, the Democrat whose district
Republicans were trying to reshape in their quest for a clean sweep
of South Carolina’s congressional seats. A defiant Clyburn insisted
he would run for reelection, regardless of what the district looks
like.
“I’m OK if it’s Trump plus 20,” Clyburn said while describing the
potential Republican advantage in a reshaped district. “I would be
running where I live.”
The Republican-led House already had passed a plan that would
reconfigure Clyburn's district, void the results of current
congressional primaries and instead hold new U.S. House primaries in
August.
Trump had lobbied for the plan, making at least two phone calls to
Republican state Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey and also
phoning in to a private meeting of Republican senators earlier this
month. He also had maintained the pressure on social media.
But debate stalled in the Senate, where Democrats were staunchly
opposed and some GOP lawmakers were concerned that aggressive
redistricting could backfire by making some Republican-held seats
vulnerable to losses because of the addition of Democratic voters.
Clyburn noted that when state lawmakers last redrew congressional
districts, after the 2020 census, they spent months holding meetings
across the state to gather public suggestions. Although that map
resulted in a 6-1 seat advantage for Republicans over Democrats, the
process was orderly and fair, he said.
“When the map was challenged, the U.S. Supreme Court said, yes, this
is constitutional,” Clyburn said. But now, “this White House says,
to hell with the process, to hell with the Constitution, just do
what we want done.”
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Chandler reported from Montgomery, Alabama, and Lieb from Jefferson
City, Missouri.
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